


Tangible & Undefined

by emmerwrites



Series: Echoes [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Fluff and Angst, Hythlodaeus mention, I can have a little AU, Introspection, Making Out at the Macarenses Angle, Pining, Soulmates, as a treat, this is just very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24088093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmerwrites/pseuds/emmerwrites
Summary: The truth can make some things harder to define, but some things don't need to be defined to be real.(5.0 MSQ spoilers)
Relationships: Ardbert/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Series: Echoes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737748
Comments: 14
Kudos: 85





	Tangible & Undefined

**Author's Note:**

> Hi we're back with more complicated feelings and unmitigated tenderness in the liminal space between life and death. 
> 
> This includes lots of vague reference to my previous writings on this relationship in [Sundered](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20519240/chapters/48699023). There's also a bit of expanded content from an old prompt response, too--hooray for recycling!

The silence was deafening.

“Well, this is bloody awkward,” Ardbert said finally. “Did he just call us soul mates?”

Alyx said nothing: her wheels were still turning. He had hoped to get a laugh out of her with that but the quiet continued.

“I mean, assuming we take him at his word, which…” he trailed off into uncertainty. “Should we?”

Alyx looked at him, her face unreadable in the light of the streetlamps. To any but them and their new old friend at the Bureau, she was alone–but they were together and tiny among the imposing but oddly comforting shadows of the surrounding towers. The Warrior of Darkness looked skyward.

“Should we?”

_ “A hue that distinctive cannot be mistaken, no matter how thin the soul is spread.” _

Waves rolled and crashed somewhere fathoms above them, while all around the trees lining the parkway whispered in a fabricated breeze. A pair of shades passed by them with noiseless footsteps only to vanish before turning the corner. 

“I don’t know,” Alyx answered herself quietly. “I have been questioning everything, ever since we got here.”

Questioning every _ one _ , at that. How many conversations with these strange giants had she had now? How much of what they said was true?

(And now, he couldn’t help but wonder, had she just been talking to Emet-Selch the entire time?)

“I have been so  _ careful _ not to trust anything,” she continued, “Trying not to get tricked--I can’t afford that now. But everything feels familiar, and that makes it feel  _ real _ .”

Something about this one felt different, that was certain. He claimed he had retained some shred of his consciousness in his creation. If he spoke for himself, why would he lie? If he didn’t, why would Emet-Selch?

“I want to believe him,” Ardbert said, “Would at least explain all–” he gestured vaguely in the space between them _ “this.” _

Their connection. Their--well, what was the right term, exactly? 

Alyx gave a smirk to the surrounding gloom. “You want us to be soul mates?”

There she was. That teasing fire, that merciless wit. He would have been more relieved if he hadn’t been so flustered.

“No! That’s not–” he struggled. Alyx was laughing warmly now, and his cheeks were burning. 

Certainly not the right term. Soul mate was always used in a romantic context, wasn’t it? In the really sappy love stories, probably--two people destined to be together, who understood each other, who made each other--

“I’m teasing,” she assured him, “I agree with you.”

“You believe him, then?”

\--made each other  _ whole. _

Alyx looked at him then like she was seeing him for the first time after a long absence. 

“Whatever this is,” she said, “I think if anything down here is real, it’s this.”

_ It’s us. _

Whatever they were.

-

  
  


Somewhere in the in-between, Ardbert was perilously deep in thought. The ghostly lights of Amaurot’s skyline were a refreshing change from the searing light in the sky above, but with every step they took into that cold, eerie darkness, he swore he could hear a clock ticking.

Counting down seconds, minutes, hours. Days? How much time did they have left?

Empty, adrift, he tried to cling to a place he knew. He couldn’t see where Alyx was, but he could see her room in the Pendants. He could see and hear every word spoken there as if every memory replayed at the same time, could watch the subtle changes in her appearance and habits as the Light within her grew. 

The weariness, the pain, the face behind the hero’s smile. This he was allowed to see. This she shared with him, even when she tried to hide it from her friends--her family. 

The room was hers, but it had become  _ theirs _ in a way--a shared sanctuary of sorts. It was a place where she was safe to converse with an invisible man without being called crazy, and that alone was a valuable comfort. It was a place where he could finally, finally be something other than alone. 

All of their conversations, their storytelling,  _ everything _ they shared, seemed to quicken his soul into form. The burdens and pains that none else could understand. Fears they could scarcely admit, even to themselves. Loneliness.

And somewhere in between--

Dizzying clarity, as if he had been shaken awake. 

_ “In our time, the two of you were one.” _

Finally an explanation. It wasn’t an easy answer, but an answer all the same. Their fates entwined across entire worlds, shards separated but bound together. Close enough to defy the laws of death, close enough to touch.

It was all so unbelievable that he might as well have called it another dream, but this dream was real. And despite the facts--such as they were, even if they barely made a lick of sense--he was with her for a reason. He could not see clearly beyond this dark, but he knew his place was by her side.

He reached for her once, twice, and then she reached back. Ever since then they couldn’t stop. Ardbert still felt like some kind of pining fool the way he sunk into the memory of every single moment of contact they had shared. 

It was embarrassing to fixate on such things, he could admit--after all, she couldn’t possibly be thinking about it as much as he was. He couldn’t deny that in those moments, his entire reality was her hand touching his, or resting on his arm, or gently holding his face. And  _ gods _ , touching  _ her _ was just as much of a miracle. Her skin was so warm and her hair felt so thick and soft between his fingers, strong shoulders he could feel shift and relax under a comforting hand...

They had become close much in the same way that lovers would, though they weren’t lovers. 

Certainly not lovers,  _ no _ , they hadn’t even _ kissed-- _

They were certainly more than  _ friends _ \--long before an ancient spectral giant had informed them so--but the bond between them was difficult to define. He couldn’t explain it. When he was with her, there was something,  _ something _ both familiar and foreign, something that hurt and felt good at the same time. A weight in his chest and a flutter in his stomach. A prickling, shivering heat at the base of his spine. 

There was curiosity, of course. There were the wandering thoughts, and the small moments of craving that he was afraid to express. There was the occasional uncertainty over whether he wanted touch, or if he wanted  _ her  _ touch. How much of this was instinctual need? A hunger for connection after a century alone?

How much was something far greater than that?

Maybe they _ were _ two pieces of something whole, even though they were whole all on their own. Maybe their souls  _ were _ the same color (what color, he wondered) and maybe when he was with her he really  _ was _ more living than dead. Maybe they were more than a girl and her shadow.

And maybe they weren’t lovers, but he still loved her.

Bloody hells, maybe they  _ were _ soul mates.

-

“So what color do you reckon our souls are, then?”

Alyx was with him again, haloed by the glow of the aetheryte.

“I once had an alchemist tell me my aether is blue,” she said with a slight shrug, “Probably not the same thing, though, especially now.”

Both Y’shtola and Feo Ul said her aether was stained by the light. Ardbert tried to remember her before, on the Source, but his memory was so clouded by time he found specific images difficult to grasp. He knew her hair was shorter then, and her eyes not nearly as tired. He had come to tear the peace she had fought for right from her hands.

He’d come for her life, for his world--the world where they both sat together now, surrounded by shades and echoes. 

“What is it?” She inquired softly. “You have your brooding face on again.”

He snapped out of his reverie to smile crookedly at her. “That’s  _ my _ line.”

Alyx chuckled hoarsely and let her chin fall to the support of her hands. She still seemed intent on a real answer, so he struggled to find the right words.

“I was thinking…” he began and looked away, “I’ve never properly...apologized. For everything back on the Source.”

They had barely talked about it, after all. Their past as enemies felt like a mammoth in the room that demanded his attention

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she told him simply. 

While his mind raced to list all of the reasons to the contrary, her voice softened his memory. “You did everything right.”

_ We did everything right. Everything that was asked of us, and still-- _

“We can’t really ever leave it behind. The guilt, or the grief.” She paused, and a determined, passionate fire returned to her voice. “And maybe we shouldn’t. But--there has to be more to us than that. There has to. Otherwise we’re no better than Emet-Selch.”

“You’re right. We can’t be conjuring entire cities like this. Bloody wasteful.”

Alyx laughed--truly, fully laughed, and he swore he could feel the sun shining on them even at the bottom of the ocean. That fire in her eyes, in her heart, the hope she inspired and truly believed--this he knew he loved. 

But he loved the darker parts of her too, the ones she fought as well as the ones she enabled-- and somehow, knowing her darkness had helped him with his own. She had given him balance, or something like it. 

_ If fate has brought me to you --  _

A dangerous swell of emotion and need took him over and all he could do was seize her wholly in his arms. Alyx said nothing, but embraced him in return. There was a split second of shock as they were flung over that precipice of impossibility entirely with one breath, yet when he recovered he relaxed and melted perfectly into her hold, as if it was exactly where he belonged. 

“Thank you,” he choked on the words, voice muffled by her collar. It was all he could think to say.

“Don’t thank me yet,” there was that fire again. He could feel her smirk. “I still have to save the world.”

His eyes were burning as he laughed against her; he squeezed them shut, awash with a desperate euphoria under the heat of her hands smoothing over his back, following his spine through his shirt. He had held her like this before but  _ gods _ it was still enough to drive him out of his wits.

When he pulled away it was only slightly, just far enough that he could look at her again. 

“You  _ will _ , though,” he affirmed. He knew how scared she was, even if she wouldn’t admit it; even if she wouldn’t let her brave face fall away. Her eyes were wide and impossibly green in the darkness. “And I’ll be there with you.”

He surprised himself with the tone of his own voice--low, rough, right on the edge of  _ something _ \-- and he swore he could feel her breath catch. She remained close, leaning in to touch her forehead to his. He had the feeling she wanted to say something, too, but didn’t know how.

They were so close that their noses touched, so close that he might lose whatever wits he had left if he couldn’t be closer.

“Thank you,” she finally whispered, quietly enough that he wondered if he had heard her thoughts instead.  _ “Don’t thank me yet” _ he wanted to say, but was completely dumbstruck by how badly he wanted to kiss her instead. If they really  _ were _ once the same soul, he had the distinct feeling that the pieces that remained were fighting desperately to rejoin one another, any way possible. 

The final step was neither a push nor pull, but a fall: he could barely tell which one of them moved first, but when they kissed they fell together and he swore the contact would have knocked him on his arse had he been standing.

If touching her was euphoria, then  _ tasting _ her was indescribable. She tasted like flame, like frost, every carefree moment of drunkenness, every rush of a battle high, every tingling burn of healing magic he had ever felt. The faint hint of her aether, sharp and fragrant, was a chill unlike winter on her lips, full and gentle and decadent. He would know that taste anywhere, that scent--it was familiar, but  _ hers _ . 

As far as he was concerned, in that moment nothing else was real. Amaurot vanished and he welcomed the crushing force of the waves above. Sighs glowed between them, pushing and pulling in perfect balance. Their tongues met, tender and still cautious, until barriers faded and he was possessed by something deep and longing.

Alyx seemed to mirror it. She shifted, realigned, melded her lips and the contours of her body to his. Her fingers lit shimmering sparks where she touched him--she cradled his jaw, smoothed her gentle grip into the hair at his nape. Heavy embers burned in the pit of his stomach while vibrant colors bloomed at every point of contact. His neck, his tongue, his chest, the crook of his arm--he curled closer and into her, circles aligning, not to eclipse but to attune.

He had no idea how long it lasted. Her mouth was the first thing he had tasted in a hundred years and he was addicted,  _ obsessed _ in only seconds.

She broke away to breathe. The heady air between them sang. 

"Ardbert, you..." the sound and vibration of his name, soft and rough at once, sent bright shivers through his being. She blinked. He held his breath. “You’re a  _ really _ good kisser.”

He stared dumbly at her for an instant before crumbling into shaking, clumsy laughter. She laughed with him until she lost her breath, all the while lingering giddy and close, a rosy flush to her cheeks that had lately been far too pale. He supposed he ought to thank her for the compliment, but instead he kissed her again so that this time he could taste her laughter.

Blissful, comforting,  _ alive. _ Lightning and honey. Dancing until the soles of his feet ached. 

Another pause, and a struggle to catch their breath as if they’d been drowning again in Longmirror Lake. This time her hair was dry in the grass when she eased onto her back.

“I’m sorry for teasing you earlier,” Alyx said, “About the soul mate thing.”

Ardbert smirked. “All it took was a good snog to convince you, then?”

She made a face, some adorable attempt at looking cross, and sat up to push him very slightly. “I  _ said _ I agreed with you,” she countered, “It just didn’t seem…”

“Like the right term?”

Alyx drew close again, and he swore he could attribute his entire existence to the sensation of her fingers twining between his. 

“It’s close,” she said. Her voice was low and soft, tugging at him again, right down to the very aether. She closed her eyes with a thoughtful sound and smiled.

“I can’t quite define it, but I can feel it.”

_ “I feel it too,” _ he wanted to say, over and over, as if that could somehow explain everything. How else could he tell someone something like that? That even though he barely knew her, he felt closer to her than anyone he had ever met? That part of him always knew the two of them would meet again, somehow, and that when they did, it was as if everything uncertain had settled comfortably into place…

His elbows met grass, cushions, stone, he didn’t know anymore. He had neither idea nor care where and when they were. Silken fire tickled his face. Bright green eyes--nearly aglow in the cold ancient light--burning through a half lidded gaze in the instants between. With his armor gone and his hands bare, the heat of her was nearly enough to burn, but she was tangible and whole and he never wanted to let her go.

“Define it however you want,” he told her finally, “Fact of the matter is you’re stuck with me, ‘til the end.”

“Good,” the Warrior of Darkness replied, and they both knew little more needed to be said.

**Author's Note:**

> Creation has been very hard lately but I'm happy to finally be able to share this bit of ghost boyfriend AU. I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! and make sure to check out my other works if you like this sort of thing because I would say this is pretty on-brand in the feelings and kissing department. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and thank you to the fine folks at the [Book Club](https://discord.gg/BtJYACE) for your encouragement and support even in the writers-blockiest of times. Thank you also to Lizzy for beta reading this for me because I never ever let people see things before I post them and I'm glad that this time I did.


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